Meet Chad Castle | Owner

We had the good fortune of connecting with Chad Castle and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Chad, do you have some perspective or insight you can share with us on the question of when someone should give up versus when they should keep going?
My business’ humble beginnings start with me assembling frames on the living-room floor of my old apartment in Inglewood. My apartment was right behind a tattoo shop called ‘Hard Luck Tattoo’ on the corner of La Cienega and Centinela. I would frequently chop it up with Oscar, the owner of Hard Luck, over a cig of two.

Oscar always kicked down the wisest of words and notions, one of which being that as a business owner, you should simply never have failure as an option to consider. He stressed that the moment a business owner considers failure, their pretty much doomed. I’ve been living by that mantra till this day (Thank you, Oscar!).

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
CCF is a custom picture framing business that maintains the principle of artisanship while still being accessible.

As mentioned, I started this business out of my apartment in Inglewood, and eventually moved to my current flat in Highland Park where I built a professional in-home framing studio ca. Jan 2020.

The pandemic hit, and I felt like it was all a pipe dream. I was stressed. How the hell was I gonna pay rent on top of overhead? However, once everything opened up, my phone was ringing off the hook with people working from home—intent on making their new workspaces more livable as that was (is?) the new norm.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
First order of business is food trucks, I think the absolute best experiences lie therein. Second is the usual spots you see in film; Griffith, Venice boardwalk, etc.

But if we’re talking Highland Park specifically, I’d say Deb’s Park if we’re gonna do a lil hike. HomeState to get some decent tacos and tequila in us, and head to York to shop around. Or hit up Highland Bowl if that’s the vibe lol. Also, our neighbor ‘ETA’ has $1 oysters that I’ve heard are next level.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Shoutout to my employees; Madeline, Javonne and Steph for literally being the best coworkers/friends I could ever ask for and to @2_liveanddiein_la for the opportunity be apart of the LA community. Also shoutout to Oscar w/ @hardlucktattoos_ for getting the ball rolling.

Website: https://castlecustomframing.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/castlecustomframing/?hl=en

Yelp: https://yelp.to/3boiIVgCRrb